I have–and absolutely love–one of the full-size Jonathan Adler cat statues, but this little guy is on my holiday wish list. It’s a miniature version of his medium cat statue, complete with ribbon and ready for hanging on your tree.
$24 USÂ |Â Available from orange and pear
1. Chinese auto market surpassed U.S. auto market in size this year.
2. There is an estimation from UN that number of cars will increase from 600 million to 2.4 billion in coming years.
3. With a very efficient CE (Combustion Engine) mile cost you 12 cents and with EV 2.5 cents.
Question now is not whether it is worth to do it, but how to make it happen fast in US, otherwise country will lose the last competitive advantage to China – already lowest cost base producer of almost all manufactured good.
China Daily
“BAIC builds electric car manufacture base in Beijing
(chinadaily.com.cn)Updated: 2009-12-12 10:50
10. AdBlock. Unsurprisingly, a couple of the most popular extensions are ad blockers, by far one of the most appreciated type of add-ons for Firefox. AdBlock, despite sharing the name with a great Firefox add-on, doesn’t seem to have any connection to it. It does what it’s supposed to do, blocks ads, and the developers say it handles Facebook ads, as well as Flash animations. It has a “blacklist” and a “whitelist” feature, both of which are still in beta and allow users to select the blocked items with a couple of keyboard shortcuts.
9. Cooliris. (screenshot below) This is the Google Chrome version of the popular desktop application with the same name. It offers an interesting alternative to viewing photos by using a gorgeous 3D interface, which the developers claim is the fastest way to browse through photos on Facebook, Picasa or even on your desktop but also through image search results on G… (read more)
Eco Factor: Concept lamp designed to run on solar energy.
With the world looking for possible ways to fuel our future generations with clean energy, industrial designers are leaving no stone unturned to show us a glimpse of a green world where everyday gadgets will make be powered by renewable electricity.
The first hydrogen pumping station in the Czech Republic was launched into operation in Neratovice, central Bohemia, on November 5, after three years of preparations by the Nuclear Research Institute (ÚJV) in co-operation with Linde Gas. It has taken almost three years and three million Euro dollars to complete the station. Three quarters of the costs have been by state and EU subsidies. The station will use gaseous hydrogen pressures of 300 bars and a typical filling of a bus will takes about ten minutes. The project has an annual capacity of 72 thousand meters cubic (about six tons) of hydrogen.
“It’s not just one hydrogen station in the Czech Republic but throughout Central and Eastern Europe,” said Chief Marketing Officer of Linde Pavel Jirsa.
The prototype hydrogen bus in the Czech Republic is called the TriHyBus which was developed by Škoda Plzeň Electric. The bus will be a hybrid and have three complementary power sources – fuel cells, capacitors and batteries.
A fuel cell power boat was launched on 9 December to circling in the Amsterdam canals. The Nemo H2 which can transport up to 87 people, is a unique boat specially designed to run on a fuel cell engine, where hydrogen and oxygen combine to generate electricity and water, without creating carbon monoxide.
Tourists can now take a ‘CO2 Zero Canal Cruise’, for an additional 50 cents, which will fund additional research into carbon-cutting knowledge, added Freek Vermeulen, managing executive of Lovers Boat Company.
“That’s important in a city like Amsterdam with over 125 canal trips per day,” said Alexander Overdiep project manager.
If the innovative boat was twice as expensive to construct than a regular diesel canal boat, and has to break at a hydrogen dispensing station for a refill daily, while regular boats require a small amount of gas once a week, however, developers of the plan, which the Dutch government partly paid for, said expenses would decrease as more boats were built and tested, and if an additional hydrogen division infrastructure materialized.
The blog reviewed here is ‘Citation Needed‘. The author is a neuroscientist who describes himself in the about section in more detail. Incidentally Yarkoni was one of the authors who published a response to Vul et al’s noted paper on fMRI (see review here).
Appearance and Design
The blog has a very simple but effective design with a white background throughout (i.e including the articles themselves). The headers and links in the articles are a light green. At the time of writing there were 10 articles on the front page. Having a lot of articles on each screen page is useful in some senses because it means that the reader can quickly and easily scan through multiple articles compared to blogs that display 1 or 2 articles per screen page. On the right hand side of the screen there are category clouds, a blogroll, RSS feeds, archives by month, a calendar and recent comments. There are also aesthetic images in a number of posts which complement the articles.
Content
The blog is relatively young having started out with this post in October 2009. Yarkoni’s take on a Nature paper about peer reviewers quality of review declining with increasing age raises a number of interesting points. Firstly although I haven’t seen the methodology of the paper it seems counterintuitive that a reviewer’s reviews would get worse with increasing age. The assumption raised here was that with increasing age come more responsibilities and less time (and enthusiasm is hinted at) can be allocated to the reviewing process. These hypotheses thus suggest that the quality of a review is a function of motivation and time with the role of experience being unclear. The second point was that of qualitative versus quantitative methodology a debate which could extend into an entire book! Yarkoni writes this post on his research using Blogger and Twitter interfaces to acquire large datasets for use in research and this is certainly a very interesting idea. This is a very nice post and appeals to me because i’ve spent a bit of time looking into the original article and the discussion that took place. Essentially Yarkoni reexamines a response he wrote to Vul et al’s paper and discusses effect sizes. He explains this from the beginning and using depression in Clown’s as the focus for his argument helps the reader to the conclusion that effect sizes play a significant role in medical/psychological/social research. I think this is a very useful post for people who are new to this type of research or even those experienced in this. In this post, Yarkoni discusses the issue of publication of negative results and he has set up a website to publish negative studies in psychology. I think this is a great idea and could not only be extended to other areas such as medicine (where journals of negative trials are published) but could also be undertaken as a blog (i.e a blog of negative studies) and one can imagine how a series of such blogs might form a ‘conglomerate’. The file drawer number is a neat concept although as Yarkoni points out it becomes less useful when the findings in the published studies are less robust. This issue of negative studies is a tricky one to deal with but hopefully ideas such as Yarkoni’s can help to raise the standards of ’shared’ scientific knowledge.
Conclusions
This blog by Yarkoni is relatively young but already has a number of very interesting articles and Yarkoni tackles important research issues. His writing is often humorous and his personality comes through very strongly in the writing which brings a human face to the very abstract theoretical subjects that are being dealt with. From these posts, Yarkoni appears to be a very accomplished communicator of science and I look forward to following his progress on the many interesting projects he has underway a number of which have benefits for wider communities.
You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link
Podcast
You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast).
TAWOP Channel
You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link
Responses
If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail [email protected]
Disclaimer
The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.
Eco Factor: Renewable energy to power Tivoli Amusement Park.
With the UN Climate Change Conference already in full swing in Copenhagen, the city is setting an example in sustainable technologies with its famous amusement park, Tivoli, announcing efforts to go carbon neutral. The park has already made strong efforts at recycling and energy efficiency, and is now looking for ways to go carbon neutral.
How did strike slow production?
Editor, The Times:
In the article “Boeing to duplicate local work for 787” [page one, Dec. 8], Boeing again is implying that the 57-day strike last year by union employees was to blame for the 2½-year delay in production.
I’m curious to know how the strike, which happened a year ago, could have caused the 1½-year delay that preceded the strike. Was it a retroactive thing? Did the strike cause the foreign suppliers to put the wrong fasteners on the first production plane? Did the strike cause management to make the decision to roll out the first plane knowing it was only the shell of the plane in order to save face for their first deadline of July 8, 2007?
I think Boeing management needs to stop hiding behind the easy out of the union being the cause of all things that have gone wrong with the 787 production, and look at their role in this.
— Tamara Martinello, Everett
Who will follow Boeing south?
On Dec. 8 The Times proclaimed the news that Boeing’s 787 production line in Charleston would not depend on supplies from Washington.
Therefore, Boeing guaranteed that the 787 production would not be held hostage to the Washington unions and their propensity to strike.
To survive, Boeing has to remain competitive in the world.
Now, the Democratic Legislature and governor will increase Washington taxes to maintain their unsustainable spending, plus continue imposing onerous regulations as demanded by the all-powerful special-interest groups, unions, environmentalists, etc.
So, the state’s productive businesses, working citizens and retirees will follow Boeing to the south where there are jobs and governments that cater to the people and not to special-interest groups.
— Don Wilbur, University Place
Machinists should be the least of company’s problems
Let me get this straight, Boeing loses a refueling tanker contract in which it is the only bidder and an employee goes to jail. Boeing designs a new plane with serious structural flaws. Boeing subcontracts work for most of the new plane but virtually all of this work is delayed and substandard.
Yet, all Boeing can do is blame the Machinists union for its problems?
My father was a Boeing machinist for 38 years. During that time, the company experienced several long and expensive work stoppages due to labor problems. These disputes were eventually settled and Boeing went on to dominate the commercial airplane market.
The only thing Boeing is known for now is crummy designs, crummy planning and decision making, and crummy executives and their scandals.
It seems to me that the Machinists are the least of Boeing’s problems.
— Clayton R. Brownell, Kent
Eco Factor: Demonstration project for containerized housing.
Danish architecture firm MAPT has unveiled a stunning COP 15 pavilion that has been entirely constructed from recycled materials including shipping containers, to coincide with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. In addition to old shipping containers, the pavilion also reuses other surplus products from the wood and wind-turbine industries.
Car crash risk for people with well-controlled diabetes
It is a discussion of a Canadian study, and assumes no knowledge of diabetes. They summarise the main findings
|
Drivers with diabetes who’d been in a traffic accident were much more likely to have HbA1c levels at the lower end of the range recorded. The average HbA1c level for those who’d had an accident was 7.4, compared with 7.9 for people not in an accident. The researchers said that the increased risk of lower HbA1c might account for about one third of the 57 accidents in the study. |
The Guardian article also contains an explanation of the possible limitations of the study.
Here is the pubmed abstract
Reminded me of a conversation I had with a colleague about what I had to do to remain safe while driving (which is a right pain in the wotsit), and she told me about her insulin dependent friend who has hypo-unawareness, and quite often drives while she has a hypo, and only corrects it when she gets home, which is kinda scary.
PetMD recently recommended HealthyStuff.org for checking up on pet toy safety. So, I decided to give them a try.
At Healthy Stuff, you can check ratings for lots of products, not just for pets. The site rates pet chew and tug toys, tennis balls and pet beds as low, medium or high.
You actually want a low rating, which means that there’s low or no levels of toxic materials present. For example, I found that the Play N Squeak “Twice the Mice” toy has a high rating, mainly due to lead in the tail feathers. Yikes. I don’t know about your kitty, but mine goes after feather mice tails like they’re the real thing. A Coleman dog bed also received a high rating for lead.
One thing I really like about Healthy Stuff is the ease of search. You can search by brand name, type, level of concern, or the product name. You may also use the “Test My Stuff” feature to nominate your favorite new pet toy or bed for testing.
Should you really be concerned about pet toys being toxic? Yes. Sadly, there aren’t any government standards for dangerous chemicals in pet products. That’s a bit amazing considering children also play with these toys. Healthy Stuff urges you to take action to get standards put in place.
(Image via Healthy Stuff)
Post from: Blisstree
BBC News presenter Susan Osman, 51, claims that she has been forced to move to Beijing to escape the corporation’s ingrained “culture of ageism”.
to take over a leading programme in China.
Osman has worked in broadcasting for 28 years, presenting bulletins on BBC World and reporting for ITN News. She fronted the Bristol-based Points West on BBC One for 14 years, but now has been hired to take over a leading programme in China.
She says that her age has become an insurmountable barrier in Britain, and has accepted a job hosting a prime-time breakfast show on China Radio International and is moving to Beijing.
Ms Osman said: “There seems to be a culture of ageism in broadcasting in this country, and it particularly affects women.” She attended a series of auditions for BBC jobs and been told she was “marvellous”. But she was consistently overlooked, without explanation.
She says that British women face ageism in broadcasting when they reached their 40s, but that their longevity is an asset in Asia. “In China they revere experience,” she said. “The older you are the better. I got the impression that my future boss actually wanted me to be older when I finally told him my age during the interview.”
She added: “I’ve had so many female colleagues who have dropped out in their early forties, which is a shame because an older woman can bring wisdom and empathy. There don’t seem to be many places for older women in broadcasting in this country.”
A BBC spokesman said: “Broadcasting, especially presenting, is an extremely competitive industry and the nature of it is such that many broadcasters are freelance artists on contracts of specific durations,” he said. “Ageism has nothing to do with it.”
The BBC was involved in an ageism row when Arlene Phillips, 66, was replaced as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing by Alesha Dixon, 31, a decision criticised by a government minister.
Eco Factor: Wind farm expected to generate 845MW of renewable power.
GE Energy has announced that the company will be supply 338 wind turbines to Caithness Energy, which will be used to drive one of the largest wind farms in the world located in Oregon at Shepherds Flat. GE Energy will also be servicing these units for a period of 10 years.
Eco Factor: Mobile home built using 40-foot shipping containers.
All those who have any experience in either living or constructing shipping container homes, know that the limiting factor is not the length but the width, which makes the home look cramped, cold and rectangular. However, the Mobile Dwelling Unit or simply MDU is different – it’s wide, comfortable and elegant on the inside.
I know a lot of people saw Parks and Recreation’s freshman season and wrote it off, but the hubby and I actually liked its quirkiness, at the same time acknowledging it needed to improve. Well, we were rewarded when Parks and Rec’s second season started (from the cold open of the first episode, even!), and it seems that a lot more people are starting to get on board with this hilarious show. Glad to see that NBC isn’t messing this up like they did with so many other shows. 
If you’re not yet watching Parks and Rec, please catch up with it on NBC’s video-on-demand site, or Hulu. Love it! 
Eco Factor: Concept fruit cooler relies on water evaporation.
While refrigerators have replaced traditional means to keep fruits and veggies fresh, the rise in demand for appliances that conserve energy has tempted industrial designers to go through some history books and bring devices that were long lost and forgotten into the 21st century.
Eco Factor: Two-seat all-electric trike.
Myers Motors showcased it all-electric two-seat trike, the NMG2, which is a face-lifted version of the NMG Sparrow, in October, and is already preparing to take pre-orders with some attractive discounts as well. The company is planning to deduct the car’s base price of $29,995 by $5000 if a thousand people drop $250 on a pre-order.